Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., is the executive director of ieiMedia. A journalism professor emeritus for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dorsher was a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montréal, 2008-09, and a founding editor of washingtonpost.com, 1996-2000.

Students visit the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Temple Mount.

Professors who want to take their summer or winterim courses on the road for credit can do so easily with a new service that ieiMedia is offering.

ieiMedia is an education company that works with university departments in mass communications and the arts to offer month-long summer experiential programs abroad for undergraduate or graduate credit. Current campus partners include the University of Jamestown (ND), James Madison, Rutgers, Colorado State, University of Baltimore, Cal State-Fullerton, Hebrew University, Iowa State, Ithaca College, Florida International and Winston Salem State University.

Mejdi Tours is a B Corp whose mission is to create a more peaceful and interconnected world through socially conscious customized travel. Its university partners served include Boston University, Valparaiso, Brown, UC-Irvine, University of Chicago, Syracuse, St. Lawrence, Arcadia, Seattle Pacific and Loyola. In addition, Mejdi is a provider to National Geographic.

Countries now served by ieiMedia are Italy, Northern Ireland, Norway, Spain, Israel, Turkey and Japan. Under ieiMedia Global Connections, the following Mejdi countries are added: Cuba, Ireland, Palestine, Jordan, Greece, England, Ukraine, Germany, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Bosnia-Herzegovina-Croatia.

Academic tours are not limited to the countries mentioned; they can be customized for any destination on the globe.

Global Connections will work with faculty and administrators to develop a workable curriculum, establish routes and visits to satisfy requirements, arrange all travel (including visas), reserve all hotels and meals, and provide insurance. The organizing faculty member is responsible for getting all campus approvals and publicizing the program on campus. If the program is open to visiting students, ieiMedia will recruit from its national database.

Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., is the executive director of ieiMedia. A journalism professor emeritus for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dorsher was a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montréal, 2008-09, and a founding editor of washingtonpost.com, 1996-2000.

Grapes at Ca’Le Soure Vineyard in Cagli.

The Institute for Education in International Media will be going home to its Italian roots in Cagli next summer with a spate of new credit-bearing programs in areas such as intercultural communication, culinary journalism and opera.

Prof. John Caputo, Ph.D., who headed Gonzaga University’s former program in Cagli, will continue his academic and administrative work as ieiMedia’s director of operations. Caputo was part of the original team when the Cagli Project (now Avanti Cagli) was first established by Loyola University (Md.) in 2001.

The return to Cagli of ieiMedia comes on the heels of three recent developments:

• Our background work with the University of Jamestown in establishing its own facility in Cagli• The discontinuance two years ago of Marquette University’s summer media program in Cagli• The end this summer of Gonzaga University’s graduate program there

ieiMedia Founder and President Andrew Ciofalo, professor emeritus at Loyola, made the announcement now in order to open up opportunities for entrepreneurial faculty and other universities to partner with ieiMedia.

“Our current program in Urbino, partnered with James Madison University, will continue to be our flagship multimedia program in Italy and for our organization,” Ciofalo said. “We are also encouraged that our new international reporting program in Bologna, with Rutgers University, has met its enrollment objectives this summer.”

While ieiMedia is open to summer and fall semester proposals, this is what is in the works for summer 2018 in Cagli:

• Faces of Cagli — Caputo’s successful biographical publishing project offered for three credits in Intercultural Communications (in proposal stage with Eastern Washington University)• Culinary Journalism — four undergrad credits under development by faculty from Ithaca College• Opera Workshop and Residency — details to come• Cooperative links under discussion with the University of Rome-Sapienza

This summer and next year, other ieiMedia projects will be offered for credit in Derry and Armagh, Northern Ireland; Urbino and Bologna, Italy; Valencia, Spain; Oslo, Norway; Kyoto, Japan; and Jerusalem. We are also exploring opportunities in Quebec and and reviewing options to return to France and Istanbul.

Rachele Kanigel is an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. She directed ieiMedia projects in Jerusalem (2013), Perpignan (2010 and 2011) and Urbino (2009) and taught reporting in Cagli in 2007. In 2017 she will co-direct ieiMedia's new international reporting program in Kyoto, Japan.

All U.S. citizens are eligible for scholarships of $750. Students who have already filed a FAFSA application can apply to receive an additional scholarship of up to $1,000, for a total scholarship of $1,750 toward the cost of the program. Students of other nationalities may inquire about other scholarships that may be available.

To apply for one of the scholarships, send an email to Ilene Prusher at iprusher@ieimedia.com with your name, email address and phone number and state whether you are applying for just the $750 scholarship or the additional $250 need-based scholarship as well. Students applying for a need-based scholarship will need to add the Hebrew University code of G04012 to their FAFSA application.

Steve Anderson is the Ruth D. Bridgeforth Professor of Telecommunications in the School of Media Arts & Design at James Madison University. Prior to entering academe, Anderson was an environmental reporter and weathercaster for KCNC television, a network O&O station in Denver, Colorado. His reporting often involved in-depth examination of local and regional environmental issues and an explanation of the science behind them. He also worked as a news photographer, weathercaster and news reporter in other markets. Steve earned his Ph.D. from the University of Denver. He is ieiMedia's Program Director for Urbino, Italy.

View slideshow below…

Students and faculty from ieiMedia’s Urbino Program were saddened to hear that PBS newscaster Gwen Ifill died on Monday. She was 61.

Ifill, who broke gender and racial barriers, succumbed to endometrial cancer. Among her many honors was the Urbino Press Award, an Italian prize that is annually awarded to an American reporter or columnist. Ifill visited Urbino in June 2015 to receive that year’s Urbino Press Award at the 500-year-old Ducal Palace. Urbino Program students attended the ceremony and later got to meet her when she spoke to them about the state of journalism and careers in the field.

“Gwen was a real role model for our students,” said Steve Anderson, Urbino Program director. “She addressed controversial issues in the field but left students with an enthusiastic and positive message about their potential future roles as journalists.”

Urbino Program 2015 student Michele Goad, from James Madison University, did a story on the Urbino Press Award called The Italian Pulitzer? “Although Gwen was there to receive a prestigious award, she never made us feel inferior to her,” said Goad, who majors in media arts and design. “This day was all about honoring her, and she found a way to make it more about us (the students). She sat with us in our classroom, told her story and gave advice about working in the media industry. While we should have been star struck, it felt more like talking to a friend. She’s someone I listened to and thought … ‘Wow, what I do really is important and needed in the world.'”

Urbino instructors were also impressed by Ifill’s demeanor and message. “She was so generous, gracious, and open with our students and was such an example of the kind of curious and probing mind good journalists have,” said Susan West, director of the magazine program. “When one student asked what she liked about journalism, she said, ‘I go home every night knowing something I didn’t know before.’”

Ifill had previously worked at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News. In 1999, she became moderator of PBS’s “Washington Week in Review.” In 2013, she became co-anchor of the “NewsHour.” Ifill and co-anchor Judy Woodruff were the first women to jointly lead a national nightly news broadcast. Ifill also moderated the 2004 and 2008 vice presidential debates as well as a 2016 Democratic primary debate.

Besides Ifill, past recipients of the Urbino Press Award include Maria Bartiromo, Wolf Blitzer, Sebastian Rotella, Helene Cooper, David Ignatius, Thomas Friedman, Martha Raddatz, Michael Weisskopf and Diane Rehm. The official announcement of the prize is made by the ambassador of Italy to the United States at the Embassy of Italy in Washington. Following the announcement in Washington, the prize is awarded during a ceremony held in the summer at the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino.

The award ceremony usually takes place while ieiMedia students are in Urbino. In recent years, our students have also had one-on-one time with Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Sebastian Rotella of The New York Times.

Gwen Ifill, center standing, meets with students and faculty of ieiMedia. (Photo by Dennis Chamberlin)

Rachele Kanigel is an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. She directed ieiMedia projects in Jerusalem (2013), Perpignan (2010 and 2011) and Urbino (2009) and taught reporting in Cagli in 2007. In 2017 she will co-direct ieiMedia's new international reporting program in Kyoto, Japan.

Three ieiMedia faculty will participate next week in an #EdShift chat, “Learning Digital Skills on Study-Abroad Programs,” sponsored by MediaShift.

The hourlong chat will start at 1 p.m. Eastern time/noon Central/11 a.m. Mountain/10 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 18. You can find it by searching for the #EdShift Twitter hashtag.

Rachele Kanigel, co-director of ieiMedia’s new Kyoto program, Steve Listopad, director of the Oslo program and Spring Semester in Urbino, and Amara Aguilar, who teaches in ieiMedia’s Valencia program, will participate. Other guests include Vivian Martin of Central Connecticut State University, Andrea Frantz of Buena Vista University, Meggie Morris of Northwestern University, Kim Fox of American University in Cairo, and John Schrader of California State University-Long Beach. Stacy Forster of the University of Wisconsin-Madison will moderate the chat.

Kanigel, an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, has led ieiMedia programs in Perpignan, France; Urbino, Italy; and Jerusalem and taught in the Cagli program. Aguilar, an associate professor of professional practice in digital journalism at the University of Southern California, taught in ieiMedia’s Valencia program in 2015 and 2016.

Former ieiMedia students and those considering our 2017 programs are encouraged to attend the Twitter chat and share experiences and questions about studying digital journalism abroad.

UPDATE:A Storify recap of the conversation was posted on MediaShift after the chat. Read it here.

Rachele Kanigel is an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. She directed ieiMedia projects in Jerusalem (2013), Perpignan (2010 and 2011) and Urbino (2009) and taught reporting in Cagli in 2007. In 2017 she will co-direct ieiMedia's new international reporting program in Kyoto, Japan.

ieiMedia is hitting the road this month, and our faculty will be available to meet with students and college media advisers interested in learning more about our study-abroad programs.

Steve Listopad, director of ieiMedia’s Oslo, Norway, and Urbino, Italy, spring semester programs, will attend the ACP convention next week and staff a booth in the exhibit hall there on Oct. 21 and 22 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington. He and former ieiMedia Oslo students will also give a presentation on “International Reporting”on Oct. 23 at 10 a.m.

Staffing ieiMedia’s CMA convention booth at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta will be Rachele Kanigel (co-director of the Kyoto, Japan, program), Jeff Brody (director of the Valencia, Spain, program), along with Listopad and James Carviou of the Oslo program. The exhibit hall will be open 4-8 p.m. on Oct. 26, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 27; and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. on Oct. 28. The faculty will also lead a presentation “Over There: Be a Student Journalist Abroad Next Summer” on Oct. 27 from 12:30 -1:20 p.m.

Faculty members can offer details about ieiMedia’s approach to hands-on, experiential learning, as well as details about housing, cultural activities, academic credit and other program features. Feel free to make an appointment with any of our faculty, or just stop by the booth or after a presentation to chat.

Can’t come to one of these events but have questions? Please contact the program director of any of our programs. Each program page has a contact link:

Andy Ciofalo (ieiMedia Founder and President) is professor emeritus of communication/ journalism at Loyola College Maryland, where he arrived in 1983 to found what is now The Communication Department.

Note: This article is by Nancy Lohman. Nancy, a freelancer from Ormand Beach, Florida, was a student in his online graduate travel-writing course at Gonzaga University.

By Nancy Lohman

To be an effective travel writer, one must bring to the work a keen sensitivity to the needs of the audience, along the lines of Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of human needs.”

It begins with the most basic motivational need, the human desire to explore. Travel writing lets readers go to far-away destinations that they might never see. Renowned travel writer Pico Iyer shared advice he was once given by his editor: “The reader wants to travel beside you.” Travel writing on a very basic level takes the reader with you. It can also serve to prepare the reader. It can inform and educate the reader about how to travel, when to travel and where to travel.

As in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once the most basic level is fulfilled, we continue to reach for the next level up his pyramid. Travel writing inspires the reader. It uses insightful observations to lure readers to escape their own world and lose themselves in the intriguing unknown.

Travel writing’s next level of purpose enlightens the reader about different cultures and helps the reader gain an appreciation for the differences in customs around the world. It broadens awareness and introduces the reader to the diversity in people. It can transform the reader into a more empathetic and more compassionate human being. It can help remove biases, prejudices and stereotypes developed through the narrow lenses of limited experiences. It can improve the reader’s awareness, tolerance and acceptance.

Travel writing can make a reader less fearful by enabling him or her to become more engaged with the world. It can make the reader wiser. You may not read travel stories with the intent to understand others better, but you will. Travel stories broaden a reader’s perspective. Travel writing brings the reader and the world together. “The flip side of fear is understanding,” travel adviser Rick Steves writes. “Your worldviews change when you meet others who feel their worldview is different than yours. Travel changes your ethnocentrisms.”

And most important, travel writing is an adventure in self-discovery, for appreciating nature and the beauty of the world. Travel writing can also help the reader evaluate priorities in life. Finally, travel writing can create a connection to each other. Readers can vicariously feel connected to a person, a place and an experience that enriches and expands them. Ultimately, at the top of the hierarchy of human needs, travel writing creates an influence and effect on the reader, who can become a better human being for having read a travel story.

Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., is the executive director of ieiMedia. A journalism professor emeritus for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dorsher was a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montréal, 2008-09, and a founding editor of washingtonpost.com, 1996-2000.

Want to study abroad but think you can’t afford it? Think again, says Rachele Kanigel, who wrote this blog post as the co-director of ieiMedia’s new program in Kyoto, Japan.

One of the best ways to raise money for a study abroad program is to apply for a scholarship from the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program. This federally funded program offers grants for U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to pursue academic studies or credit-bearing, career-oriented internships abroad.

Several students have won Gilman scholarships to study abroad with ieiMedia. This year, Amy Venn, a student at Valley City State University in North Dakota, won a Gilman scholarship to study in our Oslo, Norway, program, and you can see several of her blogposts here. In 2013 Taylor Gilman a journalism student at Metropolitan State University, won a $4,000 Gilman scholarship to study with ieiMedia in Istanbul. Kat Russell, a student at California State University, Northridge, won a $5,000 Gilman scholarship to study in Istanbul in 2011. You can read about her experience in this piece she wrote for MediaShift.

The Gilman program is designed to “broaden the student population that studies and interns abroad by supporting undergraduates who might not otherwise participate due to financial constraints,” according to the program’s website. It aims to “support students who have been traditionally under-represented in education abroad, including but not limited to, students with high financial need, community college students, students in underrepresented fields such as the sciences and engineering, students with diverse ethnic backgrounds, and students with disabilities.”

This year the Gilman program will award more than 2,800 scholarships of up to $5,000. Award amounts will vary depending on the length of study and student need; the average grant is $3,000. About 27 percent of students who apply win Gilman scholarships.

The program is open to students from public and private institutions from all 50 states; Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico.

To be eligible for a Gilman Scholarship, an applicant must:

Be a citizen of the United States;

Be an undergraduate student in good standing at an accredited institution of higher education in the United States (including both two-year and four-year institutions);

Be receiving a Federal Pell Grant or provide proof that he/she will be receiving a Pell Grant during the term of his/her study abroad program or internship;

Be in the process of applying to, or accepted for, a study abroad or internship program of at least two weeks for community college students and four weeks for students from four-year institutions, in a single country and eligible for credit from the student’s home institution. Proof of program acceptance is required prior to award disbursement;

Plan to study in a country not currently under a travel warning issued by the United States Department of State. (ieiMedia never holds a study abroad course in these countries when they are on the travel warning list.)

Award recipients are chosen by a competitive selection process and must use the award to defray study- or intern-abroad costs. These costs include program tuition, room and board, books, local transportation, insurance and international airfare.

The Gilman Program offers two summer application cycles for summer programs. The deadlines are Oct. 4 and March 7. People who apply in October will find out in late February; those who apply in March find out in May.

All applications are due by 11:59 p.m. Central Daylight Time on the date they are due. The online application system will close at this time and no more applications will be accepted. This deadline also includes uploading official transcripts from your current college or university and any transfer institution listed in your application.

Here are some tips for applying to the Gilman program:

Before you begin the application, contact the appropriate offices at your school to determine the correct study abroad and financial aid adviser(s) who must certify your application. Some institutions designate a specific financial aid or study abroad adviser to certify all Gilman Scholarship applications.

Submit your application at least a few days before the due date to ensure that you do not miss the deadline as a result of technical difficulties or because of heavy traffic on the Gilman website. Make sure your application is complete!

Some institutions require a written release of information form before your advisers can certify your application. Failure to submit a written release of information form to your adviser, if required by your university, will delay the processing of your application.

Eligible programs must be a minimum of four weeks (28 days)— or two weeks (14 days) for current community college students — in one country and can be as long as one academic year. Students who are interested in ieiMedia’s Kyoto program should also plan to participate in the optional three-day Japan English Model United Nations Conference immediately before the international reporting program, so that study-abroad experience will meet the 28-day requirement.

If you do not qualify for a Gilman scholarship, contact your financial aid office and study-abroad office to inquire about other funding opportunities.

Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., is the executive director of ieiMedia. A journalism professor emeritus for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dorsher was a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montréal, 2008-09, and a founding editor of washingtonpost.com, 1996-2000.

Mike Dorsher was a senior in college before he stepped onto a plane – and then flew from Minneapolis to London to study abroad. That course taught him the meaning of independence, culture – and bangers and mash.

Today, Dorsher, a professor emeritus and former Fulbright Scholar and Washington Post editor, takes the helm of an organization that leads an average of 100 students a year through 10 study abroad courses on five continents.

Dorsher becomes just the second executive director in the 12-year history of the Institute for Education in International Media.

ieiMedia President and Founder Andy Ciofalo chose Dorsher to direct the institute because they both are committed to delivering study abroad courses that inspire in-depth communication among students and people around the world.

Ciofalo, professor emeritus at Loyola University and online professor at Gonzaga University, has been running programs abroad for communications students since 2001. ieiMedia is unique in its dedication to communication programs in partnership with other universities, Ciofalo said, noting it has ongoing relationships with the University of Jamestown, James Madison, Rutgers, Colorado State, the University of Baltimore, Winston-Salem State, Cal State-Fullerton, San Francisco State, Hebrew University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

“Dr. Dorsher has the energy and experience to direct safe and affordable study abroad programs that prepare students to be world citizens and communication professionals,” Ciofalo said. “A strong writer with excellent digital skill sets, Mike will be leading us in some new directions that will expand our mission, develop our social media outreach and create a more compelling digital presence.”

At a time when the world is in turmoil over terrorism and North Americans are seeking new leadership, ieiMedia is uniquely positioned to help students make sense of it all, Dorsher said. “We don’t do tourism. We use journalism and other forms of communication as the vehicle for our study abroad students to have meaningful conversations with people where they live and work. Then we communicate what we’ve heard to audiences back home, using whichever media fit the story best.

“Our motto is ‘telling the world’s stories,’” Dorsher added. “For us, journalism is a window on the world and a doorway to democracy.”

This summer and for the past two years, Dorsher directed ieiMedia’s program based in Nice, France. All of his students returned to North America safely before last month’s deadly truck attack in Nice, but ieiMedia has now suspended its operations in France – and Turkey – due to foreseeable terrorism possibilities there, even though the threat to small groups of students is minimal.

Instead, ieiMedia is opening new multimedia journalism programs for the summer of 2017 in southeast Australia; Kyoto, Japan; and Bologna, Italy. The institute is also announcing its first program to be held in January, during most campuses’ winter break, and its first in North America – in Cuba.

“We chose these sites because they ranked high with our partner campuses in North America and in a survey we conducted among our student alumni, professors and social media friends and followers,” Dorsher said. “We are committed to providing the broadest range of safe and accessible communications study abroad programs.”

ieiMedia is also continuing its playwriting and journalism program in Armagh, Northern Ireland, along with successful multimedia journalism programs based in Urbino, Italy; Valencia, Spain; Oslo, Norway; Jerusalem, Israel; and Split and Zagreb, Croatia.

“The strength of ieiMedia is its program directors,” Dorsher said. “We have a student to staff ratio of just 5 to 1, and among our program directors and faculty we have hundreds of years of collective teaching experience and hundreds of years of professional journalism experience, including two Pulitzer Prize winners.”

As executive director, Dorsher will work with ieiMedia’s program directors on recruitment of students and faculty, along with coordination of admissions, budgets, curriculum and assessments. He also will be the editor of a new website that serially features the journalism of ieiMedia students throughout the year and offers their stories for free syndication.

Dorsher served as ieiMedia’s admissions director this year after taking a budget-cut buyout this January from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he was a full professor of journalism and communication. He taught new media journalism and media ethics courses at UW-Eau Claire for 16 years, co-authoring a leading media ethics text along with many articles and presentations that premiered at AEJMC conferences.

He never lost the wanderlust instilled as an undergraduate during that first flight to London, he said. “I always remembered how great it felt to meet people and go places that had just been names on a map on my bedroom wall.”

Dorsher returned to the Twin Cities, completed a B.A. in journalism from the University of St. Thomas and launched an award-winning 20-year career in news, capped by four years as a founding editor of washingtonpost.com. In between, he returned to graduate school twice, to earn a master’s in public administration from the University of North Dakota and a doctorate in mass communication from the University of Maryland.

He made his travel daydreams come true for dozens of others after becoming a journalism professor and earning grants to take students to England, Peru and France. Dorsher also earned a Fulbright Fellowship that let him spend the 2008-09 academic year crisscrossing Canada to research its media. Now he is capping his career as ieiMedia’s executive director, combining his passions for travel, cultures, languages, journalism and education.

“Not all ieiMedia students will have the opportunity to become foreign correspondents or even working journalists back home, but they all will have the opportunity to become better world citizens – in a safe, fun and affordable way,” Dorsher said. “My job is to make sure of that.”

Steve Anderson is the Ruth D. Bridgeforth Professor of Telecommunications in the School of Media Arts & Design at James Madison University. Prior to entering academe, Anderson was an environmental reporter and weathercaster for KCNC television, a network O&O station in Denver, Colorado. His reporting often involved in-depth examination of local and regional environmental issues and an explanation of the science behind them. He also worked as a news photographer, weathercaster and news reporter in other markets. Steve earned his Ph.D. from the University of Denver. He is ieiMedia's Program Director for Urbino, Italy.

Students in the 2016 Urbino, Italy program worked on some great interactive elements this year, including a before and after photo slider, a set of Google Map placemarks to highlight art installations, an audio clip from an orchestra rehearsal, and some amazing video pieces.

Lea Peck (University of Illinois): Besides winning honors for the best overall multimedia package (text, photos, video), Lea Peck (along with Danica Feuz) created one of the best video stories of the summer about a farmer who went to extreme measures to protect his sheep from wolves. See the story, Fighting Not Dancing with Wolves, at: http://2016.inurbino.net/wolves-vs-sheep. You can watch her video directly below.

Matt Boselli (Colorado State University): Video story about those unique and beloved Ape (Ah-pay) vehicles you see all over Italy. See his story, Ahhhhhhhh-pay!, at: http://2016.inurbino.net/ape-vehicles or watch his video directly below.

Students Say...

“First, this month in Urbino can’t be described in a couple of sentences. The past four weeks immersed in Italian culture have helped me to grow both as a journalist and as a person, as an American. Working with interpreters and befriending locals has been the most valuable part of this experience. Memories from Urbino will forever hold a special place in my heart.”by Laura Weeks, James Madison University, Urbino Project 2012